The macabre killings took place in the night of September 17, 2015 in the village Aïssa Harde, located in the Far North of Cameroon. The village is now in a state of desolation and abandonment.
According to the testimony of Pastor Richard Hendjena, head of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North Cameroon, "heavily armed men invaded the village of Aïssa Harde, located 11 kilometers east of Mora, capital city of the department of Mayo Sava in the region of the Far North Cameroon. It was around 11 :00 p.m. according to the testimony of some respondents. These unidentified individuals broke into several homes and killed nine people, including seven Seventh-day Adventists. Many concessions were burned thus causing significant material losses. " The slaughter that has not been claimed would still be the acts of the Islamic sect Boko Haram raging for months in the border area between Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. There is hardly a week that kamikaze bombings shook the neighboring localities of Kolofata and Kerawa. The Boko Haram sect uses several strategies since a coalition of Cameroonian and Chadian armed forces inflicted it heavy losses. In July 2015, Cameroon has recorded the first terrorist attacks on its soil with the attacks of Fotokol and Maroua. This new move of aggression of a peaceful village is not the first act of these fanatics who claim the banishment of western education. Pastor Hendjena testifies that after the killings, "many families have also emptied the village, leaving a desolate village languishing in panic and psychosis. This is the first time that the Seventh-day Adventist Church saw such a disaster by losing such a number of members since Boko Haram began its abuses in the Far North of Cameroon." The abandonment of these villages has the direct consequence of the cessation of activities of local churches located there. The populations must move in a very rainy season usually marked by famine. That is why it is important that concrete support acts be brought to these populations in distress in the Far North of Cameroon. Obviously, we heard the heart-cry of Pastor Hendjena: "we beg you to think about these brethren in Aïssa Harde and of other locations in your prayers. It's not easy to live in such a climate of insecurity."
